


Bright and Round as the Sun

by DaisyNinjaGirl



Category: Ladyhawke (1985)
Genre: F/M, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27382000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyNinjaGirl/pseuds/DaisyNinjaGirl
Summary: In which Isabeau meets her cousin, and Philippe meets his match.  Or, what happened after.
Relationships: Isabeau d'Anjou & Etienne Navarre & Philippe Gaston, Isabeau d'Anjou/Etienne Navarre, Philippe Gaston & OFC
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Bright and Round as the Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_shiny_mess (magpie4shinies)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie4shinies/gifts).



> CW: Canon consistent levels of violence.

Lord, I can explain everything!

The pony I was mounted on shifted restlessly, and I fidgeted. The collar was abominably tight around my neck, and the sun was low and shining bright and glaring into my eyes.

Lord, I know how much you enjoy our little chats. I’ll start at the beginning and put in all the details – I know you wouldn’t want me to leave anything out. So, from the beginning…

***

It all started the day after we defeated the Dread Bishop of Aquila. We’d found an old watch tower to spend the night in, but discretion is the mother of all valour and Navarre had decided that we should make haste out of Aquila before any lost souls thought of taking revenge or some such silliness like that. About that, Lord, I’d _like_ to trust and honour the clergy dedicated to your service, but you make it hard to tell which ones they _are_ sometimes. Except for old Imperius, and maybe if he had chosen to travel with us things would have turned out differently. But that’s no matter, of course you know best.

So here we all were. Navarre and Isabeau were riding Templar fashion on old Goliath, old Imperius had his donkey and I, I was running behind in their dust.

In Aquila, one climbs into winter. As we rode down from the mountains, down from the high fortresses, autumn returned in the bright reds and oranges of the leaf litter in the forests, in the leaves withered on the vine, in the last of the grapes canny innkeepers hoarded for their special guests.

“This won’t do,” Navarre said, looking at me with a frown. I straightened up, offended. Yes, perhaps this _was_ the Inn where we first met, and perhaps I _had_ made a spectacle of myself climbing over the vine trellises, but it was callow of him to remind me of it.

He strode away to a train of pack animals and spoke intently with the merchant for a few minutes. He returned leading a small pony, white and fair compared to great Goliath. I looked around confusedly – the pony was too small for my lady, and we had no luggage to speak of. “For you, Philippe,” Isabeau said with a wry look on her face. “Is this the first time someone’s given you something?”

“My first memory is of stealing bread!” I said proudly. But the little horse was beautiful, and let me feed her some grass. “Posy,” I said, “a posy of flowers.”

We spoke then, the four of us, on where to go next. Isabeau and Etienne had been so wrapped up in the weight of their curse, of surviving in the harsh world, that neither had given thought to what might happen in the days after. Navarre wanted to go north, staying in the mountains, up to the new confederacy of the Swiss where some friends from his mercenary days were, or perhaps to Savoy. Isabeau spoke hesitantly of the lowlands, and an uncle near Florence who might yet live.

“I was very young when last we met,” but she smiled when she said it. “I was ten, and he dandled me on his knee. He might help us.”

In Florence, I thought, if we stayed until February, we would be in time for the Carneval, and they would serve us little orange cakes, stuffed with cream. Or maybe sweet fritters and hot buns. And the black chestnut cakes the peasants ate were also said to be very fine… We could ride down the mountains all the way into summer, almost, too. “I think we should go to Florence,” I said.

***

We lost Tiberius to his chickens and his old ruined castle, but I thought in my head of all the things I would tell him when next we met: of the Ponte Vecchio with its shallow arches and the huddle of butchers, tanners and farmers who kept their shops across it; the warm brick of the four square buildings that surrounded us; the cries of street hawkers; the golden florin, as bright and round as the sun that Isabeau gave me.

Ah, Florence, the city of bankers.

We watched a nobleman in elaborate finery brush past a Jew moneylender with a yellow cone hat and a prostitute in a striped cloak. The nobleman turned sharply, his aquiline nose as arrogant and sharp as my lady’s knife. “Isabeau? Isabeau, is that you?”

Isabeau sat up straight against Navarre’s back. “Guillem? Etienne, this is my cousin, Guillem, of Aquila.”

“Of _Calenzano_ ,” the nobleman corrected.

“I remember who he is,” Navarre said, his voice husky.

“They said,” Guillem de Calenzano interjected, as if Navarre had not spoken, “that you had run away with a common dog soldier.”

“Anything but common,” Isabeau said, her face shining with loveliness. “Guillem, this is my husband, Etienne. It is complicated to explain.”

“Do you care to explain it?” the lord replied, looking for the first time at Navarre.

Many complicated expressions passed over my lord’s face. At last Navarre said: “my servant will explain it,” and nudged Goliath forward. I pasted an optimistic grin on my face as the nobleman's men-at-arms fell in around us.

***

Some hours later, I wandered through the palazzo, collecting an item here, an item there. If you look busy enough, people always assume you’re supposed to be doing whatever it is.

“Why do you steal clothes?” a voice sprang from behind me. “Is your lord a pauper?”

I distracted her with persiflage. “I seek my lady Isabeau,” I said, stiffly. “I require you to take me to her.”

The young woman laughed at me. “And I desire that you take me to your lord, that I may inquire after his dress tonight, and drape my lady Isabeau accordingly. But,” she eyed my armful of clothes, “I believe I now can manage.”

This light brown almost-castle was a warren that I, mouse-like, had not yet learnt to run. “Then, my lady Isabeau, if you would, miss.” I twinkled at her, but it didn’t take.

The upper chamber where Ladyhawke was housed was spacious and airy, in a spire reaching to the sky. I could hear Isabeau scolding the maid as we entered: “that’s _enough_ , Margarethe, I said I needed quiet,” when she saw my scruffy form and ran to me in a great hug. “Oh, Philippe, you found me. How is Etienne?”

From over her shoulder, I smirked at the maid Margarethe.

“He is well, and being cared for,” I said, stepping back, which was strictly speaking not a lie, but compared to the apartment allotted to Isabeau, his pickings were meagre indeed. “He cares only that I seek after your wellbeing.”

Isabeau smiled and held her hands to my face. “I am well, little mouse, wanting only to hear from you.” She was dressed in a shift of the fine Arab cotton that rich people wore, and smelled now of the flowers rich people put in their soap, instead of the leather, wool, _metal_ of the clothes she borrowed from Navarre. Truly, she was more beautiful than the moon, I thought.

When I sought Navarre again, the _maid_ had followed along with me. She appeared possessed of the outrageous idea that if she looked busy enough, no one would notice she wasn’t supposed to be doing whatever it is. Such an annoyance.

“You will need to make arrangements to bathe your lord,” she insisted. “He is a Spaniard, after all.”

“That is already taken care of.” When I opened Navarre’s chamber door, she bustled in after me. My lord glanced over a bare shoulder in surprise, the waters of his bath steaming gently.

“Oh. My compliments to my lady,” Margarethe said boldly.

“You shouldn’t be here!” I hustled her out. “Away, away with you!” I slammed the door behind me. I opened it a crack, threw my armload inside, yelled “I have brought you fresh towels, lord,” and plastered myself across the doorway to protect him from all comers.

“You are very strange,” the girl said. “The rumours,” she added, “that the servants from Aquila brought with them, are that my lady Isabeau ran away with a common soldier.”

“There is nothing common about Navarre. He is a knight!”

“A landless knight.”

“You know nothing. His father went to the crusades.”

“My grandmother went to the crusades. _When she was ten._ ”

“You don’t know anything. I’ll tell you. It all began when I was the first prisoner ever to escape from the Dungeons of Aquila. The gate was strait and narrow, and the tunnel narrower – not unlike escaping from mother’s womb….”

***

“And then,” I announced, waving my arms dramatically, “my lord cried ‘Stop!’ as the bells, the dreadful bells rang announcing the death of his lady love, Ladyhawke.”

I had dressed Navarre in pale blue, to match his eyes. As I recounted his final dreadful battle, his face softened into grief and the pain of three long years holding on to his life however he might.

I cast a beseeching look at the Conte de Calanzano’s minstrels, and a piper and vielle player obligingly struck up a gentle tune.

“And so,” I continued, “after the death of the Dread Bishop of Aquila, my lord Etienne raised my lady in his arms. ‘I love you,’ she said, ‘I love you, I love you.’ Truly, it was the blessing of God, enough to make grown men weep, and surely I did, and the good monk Tiberius also. And so we left that evil place Aquila, to walk into the light, by God’s grace.”

I paused, and in the appreciative silence that followed, bowed deeply.

“A pretty story,” Guillem said drily. “And well performed. You have a fine jester, Navarre. You may tell me the truth of it later.”

Isabeau, seated next to the Count, stirred. She sought out my lord’s eyes; both she and Navarre gazed at each other with the love that had carried them through three years of wandering.

“I have here,” Conte Guillem raised a paper, “a letter from my steward in Aquila. He tells me that our Prince-Bishop was recently murdered by a disgruntled soldier of his guard, who invaded the priests’ confession and brought a brawl into the house of God. What say you to that, young Navarre?”

“It is a lie,” Navarre said simply. “My page has told you of the curse my wife has suffered under, and how we broke it. You yourself stood in the eclipse, when day became night, but a week ago. And,” Navarre quirked a smile towards Ladyhawke, his face softening, “you know your cousin and her virtue.”

“Hmmph,” the Conte granted. “I will think on this.”

Navarre smiled then, or at least he showed his teeth. His eyes seemed almost lupine, as they had that day in the ice. He might be human now, but the wolf was never far away, never.

We were sat down at one of the lesser tables, and fed, meagre as the portions were, but I knew that we had escaped one cage for another.

***

The Conte of Calenzano might be a nobleman, but he had no feel for the countenance of an aristocrat, the, the _noblesse oblige_ those higher in the Chain of Being owed us lesser folks. I was picking glumly at the scraps left to me as a servant, when the importunate Margarethe nudged me in the ribs.

_“Ow!”_

“Come, I will show you,” and she led me by a secret way to the darker part of the kitchen, high on the top floor of the palazzo, and retrieved a bag of hidden chestnuts and a jug of fine wine.

“What could the Count be about?” I mused.

“Getting rid of Navarre, most likely,” Margarethe shrugged. “It’s inconvenient that they say they are married, but who witnessed it after all? And the Pope can always be got around for the right favour.”

“What?” I sputtered, spilling wine over my new fine stolen tunic. “For what purpose? Never was love more pure and more selfless.”

Margarethe shrugged again. “What do the nobility care about love? The Conte seeks alliances – and his cousin carries the bloodlines of Anjou. There’s value to him in marrying her off to a friend or enemy. It doesn’t hurt that she’s pretty.”

“My Lady Isabeau is more beautiful than the moon on a winter’s night,” I breathed, “and I should know. Why would you tell me all of this, who works for the Conte?”

She sniffed. “You have _met_ the Count of Calenzano haven’t you?” She popped a chestnut in her mouth and chewed it a while. “The old Count was gentler. But he died, and the nearest heir is this Abruzzan lout come over last year from the mountains. He doesn’t understand our ways.”

“Let me tell you,” I said expansively, “about the times my lord has woken me from slumber and fed me fish caught and cooked with his very own hands. Or the time I rescued him from drowning in the ice. I still have the scars. We have had such adventures together, he and I, I tell you no lies.”

“I will help you,” the maid said, “for one favour.”

I shifted uneasily. “I can’t promise everything, you know, I’m a thief pretending to be a serving man.”

She caught my sleeve. “Take me with you when you leave,” Margarethe said urgently. “I would be a _good_ maid to my lady, and I long for there, for there to be _more_. More than this, subsisting in a cruel man’s household. You say your lord is honourable–“

Lord, Margarethe is as short and as mouthy as I am. Clearly, we would not get on.

“I will pass on your request to my lord Navarre,” I said stiffly. “I can’t say fairer than that.”

***

In the darkness of the new moon, I huddled in the courtyard of the palazzo, in the smallest, miserablest corner I could fit myself into. When I had gone to Etienne to warn him, there were soldiers already trampling the corridors. Margarethe had hissed at me to follow her, but I took a mouse’s secret ways through the building. _No one_ follows me when I don’t wish them to.

Lady Isabeau had been housed in the tower. I calculated, biding my time, thinking through how one who is light and quick with his hands might climb. A light flickered through the pane of oiled linen in that highest window and I took my chance to leap and scamper. I wedged my knife into the sill to help me hold on. “My lady?” I whispered. “Your cousin has arrested Navarre. Can you get free?”

She opened the window then, as if for a breath of air and spoke under her breath. “I’m being watched. If we could move quickly…” The window was a small one, and she had not my talents, not for squeezing through small spaces, nor for climbing the unclimbable.

For a moment, Isabeau seemed rigid with indecision. Then: “Philippe, you must get out now. I will try to get a message passed to you at the basilica. But quickly, fast as a mouse you understand.”

“Navarre would kill me if I left you– “ I protested.

Her face was wrecked with rage. “If I were a hawk again, I would strike out Guillem’s eyes to lay hands on me so.”

“That old story,” a voice grated, amid the clink of muffled weapons being raised, “a thief taken in the night and hanged for his impudence.” An arrow bolt thwacked the wall I clung to, and I pressed Isabeau’s hand in mine a moment before I slid down.

In the farthest corner of the courtyard arches I could see Margarethe, her eyes glinting in the dark. As they wrestled me away, she lifted her chin.

***

Some hours later, and I was astride my little pony, Posy, _this_ pony, somewhere outside the city, with a sack over my head. There was the clink of armour, and the cough and mutter of armoured men. A fine hostage, I, it seemed.

I heard a familiar whinny. “Ah, Goliath,” I said. “Good boy, nice boy.”

One of the guards: “Conte? He is here.”

“I have stood between the doors of heaven and the gates of hell,” Navarre grated, “do you think you can scare _me?_ ”

“Stray dogs belong to no master, Guillem of Calenzano replied, supercilious as a weasel. “You have until the bells strike Sext to depart, your page’s life as surety.” The sack was pulled from my face then, Lord, and I looked around wildly in the chill light of dawn. Navarre was a creature of ice. You know how pale is, with his hair bleached by the sun, and his cold distant eyes. He seemed carved of those great rivers of ice that flow down from the Apenines, and more still, and more unstoppable. I could see him assessing the field with a soldier’s gaze, the men with crossbows, the guard with his knife at my neck. Goliath shifted a moment, one, two steps, then Navarre flung up his cloak of black and scarlet and shouted. “ _Hah!!_ ”

When everyone stopped flinching, I noted Goliath galloping away, his rider as grim as the Last Judgement. “My master cares about me a great deal,” I said confidently to the guard who held me. “He is a very kind and honourable lord.” And so are _you_ , Lord. I know we’ve had our differences, but I also know you’ll be there for me. The Conte cuffed me about the ears then, so that I would remember him. 

Lord?

***

Posy shifted again, and sidled. The sun was hot on my head and I could hear far away the bells of the church up on the hill. My time was up. Etienne is a kind and honourable master, but he’s a tactician and a captain, as well. The clever thing to do, even I know, is to rescue Isabeau while everyone is distracted with me. My life, for the most beautiful woman in the world? It should be worth it, but really, I don’t think I’m quite done. Lord, would you not prefer an aged vintage to raw wine from the first pressing? Oh Lord. Only Lady Isabeau would be worth it.

“It’s noon!” one of the guards shouted. “Let’s hang the bastard!”

“Excuse me,” I said, offended, “my mother may very well have been married to my father, if I’d known who she was. You’re very rude.”

“Cut his tongue out first?” the other suggested, holding up a dagger.

Lord? Lord, you haven’t heard the end of my story yet! You wouldn’t want to miss the end–

Posy shot forward from a strike to her rear and the hempen rope around my neck tightened. I began to kick frantically – a hawk screamed, and I looked up in terror at the familiar red-tailed hawk stooping out of the sky. Lord – Lord, you promised. We did as you asked, we broke your curse, they stood before the bishop, Isabeau and Navarre as man and woman together – my lungs were screaming and my head about to explode. Lord, Lord you _promised._

Just then, the rope broke, and as I rolled onto the ground gasping, I saw above me the quivering blade of Navarre’s broad sword embedded in the tree above me, the cut rope dancing in the wind. Points for style but not speed, I thought wearily, sitting up.

A black wolf was dispatching the last remaining guard, and I winced at the smell of blood and the raw howl of the wolf. I crawled over to one of the guards, the one slain with crossbow bolts, not the one with his throat torn out, and possessed myself of his dagger. “Lord,” I said, as I rubbed my bound hands against the blade. “You keep surprising me, such a sense of humour!”

The wolf was gazing at me intensely and it _howled_ ; the hawk arced in flight away and across the hill. Lord, I think your sense of humour goes too far for me. We _broke_ that curse; you wouldn’t return them to animals again, not you…

I limped up the hill behind the wolf, weeping to lose my friends again. I tumbled once, and howled at my wrenched knee. The black wolf stood over me, panting, its jaws bloody, and I said urgently: "Navarre, you know me. I saved your life once, from the chill waters." The wolf came close then, so that I could feel his hot breath on my face, and nudged at me, as if he wanted to grab me by my collar. I walked up more slowly, my hand on my lord's soft sable fur, the wolf's strong back steadying me.

As I reached the crown of the hill, bare flesh beset my eyes, and I flung myself away. “I didn’t see anything, Navarre! Please don’t strike out my eyes.”

A sniff came from above. Warily, I cracked open my eyes. Margarethe was looking down at me disdainfully. “ _You_ , boy, will not insult my mistress so. Wait here until she is ready.”

A few minutes later, my lady Isabeau, now modestly dressed in Navarre’s spare white tunic, approached, and thwacked my head gently so that I would remember her.

“Oh, Philippe,” she said, “where would we be without our little mouse?”

***

I’ve always known I could rely on you, Lord.

And so we rode away together, Etienne and Isabeau cradled together on Goliath, I on my good sweet Posy. Margarethe trod sullenly in our dust. I sighed, and reached down my hand to her, so that she could ride Templar fashion against my back.

“We go North!” Navarre cried.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it was a very throwaway line in the movie that Isabeau went to live with "a cousin, I think", but then this cousin never gets mentioned or seen again, or in any way approached for assistance. A Watsonian explanation is that he's a jerk, so I bring you... Guillem.
> 
> I spent way too long researching an appropriate title for Isabeau’s cousin, which was really complicated. Florence is a Republic at this point with its own appointed nobility, but I couldn’t find any lists in English for the 13th C, so ended up picking the name of a nearby town, Calenzano.
> 
> Cotton is in period: http://costumedabbler.ca/cotton Yes, really!
> 
> "My lord glanced over a bare shoulder in surprise, the waters of his bath steaming gently." - The director of the original movie was very understanding about the needs of its female viewers; Margarethe has needs of her own.
> 
> “My grandmother went to the crusades. _When she was ten_.” – So there actually were two separate Children’s Crusade, both in 1212, although they ended pretty badly for the participants.


End file.
